We Were Virtually Working for the Banks — MD of GOIL
By Esther Korantemaa Offei
The Managing Director of GOIL PLC, Edward Bawa, has detailed the severe financial challenges the company faced, citing high liabilities, expensive borrowing, and mounting debts.
Mr. Bawa explained that the company’s liabilities escalated significantly, placing pressure on its working capital and forcing reliance on costly short-term financing. “Liabilities were very high. No two ways about that,” he stated. “Because of that, there was pressure on our working capital, and we had to rely on overdrafts and short-term loans that came very expensive.”
He revealed that financing costs alone sometimes rose to about 120 million cedis, creating a situation where much of the company’s revenue went into servicing debt. “The company was virtually working for the banks,” he said.
To address the situation, management moved to refinance its obligations and secure longer-term funding. “We needed to find a way of ensuring that we refinance these debts and get patient capital,” he explained, noting that some facilities were restructured over a five-year period to reduce dependence on overdrafts.
Mr. Bawa also highlighted the scale of the company’s payables, particularly to transporters. “At the time we came, we were owing transporters almost 300 million,” he disclosed, adding that the figure has now been reduced to about 12 million cedis.
On receivables, he indicated that GOIL was owed approximately 1.8 billion cedis by state and private institutions. He noted that some of these debts were tied to entities that are now defunct, complicating recovery efforts. “We see companies that have gone bankrupt or are no longer operational, yet they owed us,” he said.
He added that interventions such as the introduction of structured payment systems for fuel supplied to security services have helped improve the company’s financial position, ensuring more reliable revenue flows and better cash management.
